Karl Nichols is an experienced management professional with a proven record of leadership in the nonprofit sector in the areas of educational and healthcare program management, administrative leadership, organizational partnerships, fund development, and civic engagement. For the past twenty years, he has worked tirelessly to see the issues of violence prevention, infant mortality reduction, fatherhood, child advocacy, education, youth development, and nonprofit management advanced in the City of Milwaukee and now Austin, Texas. In Milwaukee, Mr. Nichols served as Program Director and helped establish the Helen Bader Institute for Nonprofit Management at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the first nonprofit academic center of its kind in the State of Wisconsin. The mission of the Helen Bader Institute was to improve the leadership and effectiveness of nonprofit organizations through education, research and service in the Greater Milwaukee area. Mr. Nichols oversaw the project management of HBI programs and services by facilitating planning efforts, directing program development, and developing strategic partnerships in the local, state, and national communities. While in Austin, Karl has worked in senior leadership roles with well-respected organizations such as: OneStar Foundation, Skillpoint Alliance, SafePlace, and more recently, the African American Youth Harvest Foundation.

In his new role as Vice President of Investor Development at E3 Alliance, Karl will be working closely with the senior leadership team to develop the resources required to launch and scale major regional education initiatives through philanthropic and corporate grants, on line relationship building, annual giving, and sales of education research and related services. Founded in 2006, E3 Alliance is a regional, data-driven education collaborative based in Austin, Texas that is helping to build the strongest educational pipeline in the country to drive regional economic prosperity. In his previous work, Mr. Nichols was responsible for leading the strategic fundraising efforts of a local nonprofit and helped grow the operating budget by 54 percent in one year through the expansion of governmental contracts, increases in corporate and philanthropic giving, and launching annual giving and individual/major donor campaigns. With over 12 years of extensive experience in executive leadership roles, he hopes to bring these skills and experiences towards advancing the work of E3 Alliance in the fund development capacity. Karl holds both a BA and MBA with a concentration in nonprofit management from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. Karl is happily married to Linda Nichols and resides in Austin, Texas with their three sons who all graduated from Round Rock Independent School District high schools and currently matriculate at Texas universities.

Brief statement why you have accepted appointment and what you would consider to have been a successful tenure when your term:

In Milwaukee, I served as Program Director and helped establish the Helen Bader Institute for Nonprofit Management and the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, the first nonprofit academic center of its kind in the State of Wisconsin. The mission of the Helen Bader Institute was to improve the leadership and effectiveness of nonprofit organizations through education, research and service in the Greater Milwaukee area. I oversaw the project management of HBI programs and services by facilitating planning efforts, directing program development, and developing strategic partnerships in the local, state, and national communities. With this experience. I hope in a small way I can help advance the mission and goals of The Center for Nonprofit Studies (CNS). Based on the current short and long-term goals of CNS, I hope that I can advance these efforts during my tenure by building the brand, the scope of services, the funding base, and the overall utilization of educational programming and capacity building tools for students, professionals, and nonprofits alike in the Greater Austin area.

Brief statement on your sense of the Center’s impact for its first 15 years and its potential for future:

Without having access to any reports or data on the impact of CNS in the past, it is a bit difficult for me to accurately articulate the Center’s impact over the last 15 years. However, just measuring its longevity, signifies to me, that this is an organization, a program, an entity that has true value to the community. If it were not, Austin Community College would not continue to support it and community members would not be participating in the array of professional development, capacity building, and sector advocacy events over the years.

However, I would be interested in seeing what kinds of outputs and outcomes CNS has achieved over that time period in comparison to how the Austin nonprofit sector has grown and the level of complexity these organizations face Consequently, the future of CNS will depend largely on how it is adding new value to the rapid growth and challenges of Austin nonprofit sector as well as how it’s building the leaders of tomorrow to advance the social innovations of today.